Munahse (left), Nthabiseng (right) keen actors playing respectively Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, in their own Children of Fire drama. 1st March 2014.

Munashe received a scleral shell on Tuesday 4th March 2014, thanks to Jack Bernard, master ocularist at Custom Eyes

Munashe has been helped by Children of Fire for 15 months, under the care of Bronwen Jones. Her treatment is ongoing. The teenager had a tissue expander inserted in her scalp in early 2014 and hopes to have her hairline improved. She also hopes to have an 18,000 Rand (£1000) scleral shell inserted over her damaged left eye, during the course of the year. Maybe she will also get medical tattooing on her left cheek.

Munashe (13) had arm surgery in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in May 2013.
She was under the care of Professor John Fleming. She is expected to live with Children of Fire for two years.

Munashe's name means "God is with you."

She is an orphan from Zimbabwe and she came to Children of Fire with her cousin Clara who is also severely burned.

She was born 28th September 1999.

Her mother died around 2009 and her only brother died in 2012. The little brother found an open container of peanut butter by a rural shop, and on eating this, the child died as the food had been laced with rat poison to kill the vermin around.

Munashe Anderson was then looked after by her cousin who has two children of her own. Munashe slept on the floor of the hut shared with this family, about 35 km out of the main city of Harare in Zimbabwe, in an area known as Snake Park, near Lake Chivero.

On 9th August 2011 the two girls were sleeping in a hut together when a fire broke out and the roof of their thatched house caught alight and collapsed in on them. No one knows how the fire started - it could have been the wind carrying a spark - but foul play is not suspected. The girls were pulled out of the hut, but sustained severe burns. They were in the Parirenyetwa Government hospital Harare for ten months and were discharged in July 2012. The poor arm skin grafting pulled Munashe's hand back dramatically.

The reconstructive surgery capability that she needs is not available in Zimbabwe.

The girls came to live with Bronwen Jones in January 2013, to rehabilitate and rebuild body and mind at the same time.

Both Munashe and Clara had already have lost the sight of one eye, or will be likely to permanently lose the sight of one eye, due to lack of essential eyelid reconstruction surgery, ointments and eye patches.

Topical ophthalmic antibiotic costs R88 a tube and one would use one tube a week per child plus Duratears (to keep the eye moist) also at about R80 (2013 prices in South Africa) a tube plus special eye-patches each day at R5 each. And that is just one tiny aspect of the help that they need to prevent further damage.

To get their hands back into a functional position will take many operations, inserting wires into their fingers and trying to realign them so that they can hope to hold a pen or a toothbrush, do up a button or a zip, or more. The idea of tying their own shoe laces is a big dream for now.

To get their arms into the correct position requires several operations and specialised thermoplastic splinting and pressure garments later. This is urgent because these children are still growing and the longer that limbs are in the wrong position, the worse it gets. Bones won't grow to the correct length, veins and arteries migrate into the wrong position, tendons shorten.

Discoloured skin can be helped with medical tattooing. Restoring hairlines might not be possible. Reshaping ears could happen a long way down the line.

These little girls will be sleeping with eyes open and mouths open due to the skin contractures. That continues to damage eyesight and dentition.

We used email and Facebook and tweets to contact people who call themselves Zimbabwean philanthropists, but had no response.
The Conlon family arranged both cousins' transport to South Africa and their initial medical visa.